Review: Build A Community With Thoughts.com
Aug 20th, 2008 | By Shamim | Category: Internet, News, ReviewsSocial community websites are very popular in the current internet market. Hundreds of specialized community sites are catering to the web audience of all ages, but Facebook and MySpace are the unchallenged leaders. But they are limited in what users can do and this is where Thoughts.com is trying to carve out a market for itself. Thoughts.com gives users the ability to create blogs, upload videos and pictures and create albums, host podcasts, polls and forums all on their servers. Users can let their creativity take over and make good use of all the features offered at Thoughts.com.
Features
The typical scenario is that some social websites offer blogs (like Blogger), some offer picture hosting (like Flickr), some offer personalized pages (like Facebook). Thoughts.com covers all the bases and offers pretty much all social networking and community features - blogs, pictures and albums, videos, polls, forums and personalized profiles to manage all the user activities.
Blogs seem to be the most popular section of Thoughts.com where people are encouraged to create a blog and new posts are published frequently. Blogs page by default shows the most recent posts across the Thoughts.com network. Going by the update time of the various blog posts the community looks active and engaging. Navigation also includes popular posts, top 100 blogs, random blogs and the ability to browse by popular tags. Such a collection of most recent posts is sure to increase community interaction and help the website grow.
Users have the ability to upload pictures and create albums. Several albums can be seen on the Photos page, but the community activity is low and most albums have few views. Various tags are located on the right pane making navigation easier. Videos section has quite a few videos and users have the ability to upload after registration. There are also a variety of podcasts, polls and surveys listed on the site. The news section provides up to the minute stories pulled from Reuters. Individual user profiles are similar to what is being offered by most other social networking websites. A cool feature is the “presence icon” which shows the current status of the user next to the name. It shows if he/she is currently online and logged in to the website network.
What makes Thoughts.com Unique
Thoughts.com offers a lot of services to its members. The combined feature list of blogs to forums and everything in between are enough to attract and retain users. There are very few other websites which allow such a range of activity and in this respect Thoughts.com is unique. A quick look at the homepage is enough to impress even the most demanding user.
Areas of Improvement
The website offers a lot of services to its members and it has a functional and interactive community built around itself. Thoughts.com has its work cut out for itself because it has a well established presence. There are many members who update their blogs, albums and participate in the forums. However the number of distinct properties of the website can be confusing to some users. As more people start using this site on a daily basis they can expand in to the various sections.
Verdict
Thoughts.com is a HIGHLY RECOMENDED website and it is definitely worth checking out. If you are still on the edge then take a tour of Thoughts.com and decide for yourself if you would like your creativity reign freely.
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